Mahindra e2o: An electric car for the masses?

Mahindra e2o: An electric car for the masses?

Well, that's because the e2o started life as the Reva NXR concept and was designed by DC Design, which explains the unconventional, striking architecture.

With Maini Reva being bought over by Mahindra, the e2o became the latter's pet project on the electric car front.

The original Reva was, of course, severely hampered by its shrunken dimensions, both inside and out, and it wasn't very practical.

Or cheap.

Now, it is important to understand that unconventionally powered vehicles aren't exactly cheap to produce and even if you could find a way to do so, making them reliable and usable on a daily basis takes a lot of research and development.

Mahindra e2o: An electric car for the masses?

The large touchscreen interface mounted on the dash is the icing on the cake, considering it not only serves as a multimedia unit, but is also a functional GPS unit, which runs in sync with the car and helps you plan a route that is conducive to the available range before the e2o runs out of power, in an electric sense of the word.

You can also sync the interface to your smartphone via an application and turn the air-conditioning unit on and even lock/unlock your car.

However, the highlight of the interior package is the space on offer.

It is spacious enough for four adults and a few items of light luggage and even head room and shoulder room are very decent for a car that's only 3,280 mm long and 1,560 mm tall.

Mahindra e2o: An electric car for the masses?

Initially, driving this car feels very strange, even if you've driven a Reva before, because it's hard to make the association with a car that's nearly conventionally sized to move forth with no noise whatsoever.

Four gear modes -- F, B (for 'boost'), N (neutral) and R (reverse) -- are on offer, and on a full charge, which takes five hours, the e2o can cover a distance of 100 km according to what Mahindra Reva claims.

In real-world driving conditions, it would be fair to estimate that the range would drop down to between 85-90 km.

Still, there is a 'limp home' mode built into the system, which adds another 10 km to the e2o's range and a 'revive' function that gives it an additional 10 km of driving range.

Mahindra e2o: An electric car for the masses?

The maintenance-free lithium-ion batteries come with a standard warranty of 3 years (or 60,000 km -- whichever is earlier) although the manufacturer suggests it can last as long as five years, depending on usage and driving pattern.

The service interval, too, is set 10,000 km apart (Mahindra's website suggests the cost of a regular service is Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000, inclusive of labour and consumables), which sounds quite alright.

If charging it via electricity seems somehow inconvenient to you, you could even install the Sun2Car package, which charges the car using solar panels, depending, of course, on availability of sunlight.